‘I want them to think of me as their advocate’: How Patty Gasso built and sustains OU softball into one of the nation’s best athletic programs
OU softball head coach Patty Gasso poses for a photo at Marita Hynes Field on Feb. 19.
Caitlyn Epes/The Daily
Patty Gasso had a comfortable 5-1 lead over Utah in the fourth inning last Friday, but she was taking no chances.
The Utes had just scored their first run and had two runners on after the Sooners let two routine plays at second base fall through. The Oklahoma softball coach went to the circle and gathered her pitcher, catcher and infield.
“There were runners at first and third, so I was telling (shortstop) Grace Lyons to handle the runner on her own,” Gasso said. “But it was really also a message to (pitcher Shannon Saile) that she had success with this part of the lineup, so just go in and attack. It was more about giving her confidence and making sure the defense was in the right position.”
The Sooners picked up two outs on the next two batters, squashing Utah’s potential momentum. Oklahoma then immediately scored five runs in the bottom of the fourth, shut out the Utes in the fifth and proceeded to seal a run-rule victory.
It was a moment that exemplified Gasso’s coaching prowess — from teaching specifics of the game to Lyons, to helping Saile with the more abstract concept of confidence — and a win that kept the Sooners rolling amid Gasso’s newest coaching challenge as she ushers in another new era of Oklahoma softball.
She proved she was still as good as ever in 2019, her 25th year at Oklahoma, with a season that included a program record 41-game win streak, six All-Americans, an undefeated conference record and a fourth consecutive Women’s College World Series appearance. The only achievement the Sooners fell short of was winning a national championship, as UCLA swept them in the WCWS finals.
But 2020 is a different story. The Sooners lost four of their first 24 games — including to unranked Long Beach State and North Texas, while it took them 60 games to take their fourth loss in 2019. They’re battling injuries, transfers and, maybe most difficult, replacing Oklahoma’s most successful senior class in Gasso’s tenure. But the season’s challenge also presents an opportunity for Gasso to utilize two of her strengths: teaching and adaptation.
“I think that she’d be telling them right now to keep fighting and this is a tough part in the season right now. But we will persevere and we will be better because of it,” said Melyssa Lombardi, who played for Gasso from 1995 to 1996 and was an assistant from 1997 to 2018. “I think on the outside people could go, ‘Oh, goodness, what's going on?’ Me being inside the program, I have no concerns.”
Lombardi’s mindset makes sense when looking at Gasso’s history. She has taken Oklahoma softball from a fledgling team to one of the NCAA’s premiere programs regardless of sport. With over 1,200 wins, four Women’s College World Series championships and 12 Big 12 championships, Gasso’s success informs any lack of concern her former assistant and player has.
But there’s no single secret in her coaching style that manifests her winning pedigree, it’s a combination of maintaining consistency as an elite recruiter and developer of talent, her focus on molding players into young women on and off the field and an ability to adapt year to year to her teams.
“I’m 100 percent the coach and person I am today because of my time with Coach Gasso,” said Lombardi, now Oregon’s head coach. “All the life lessons she’s taught me on and off the field are definitely things I want to take and have taken with me.”
'I was really starting from nothing'
Head coach Patty Gasso talks to sophomore infielder Grace Lyons during the game against Wichita State on Mar. 4.
Trey Young/The Daily
When Gasso first arrived in Norman in 1995, she was overwhelmed.
After five-years at Long Beach City College, Gasso was hired to take over Oklahoma’s softball program. While the work was the same, the grind and heightened workload of being a Division coach left Gasso feeling underwater.
“I thought going from junior college to Division I was kind of the natural step but I found out it is absolutely not a natural step,” Gasso said. “The workload, the stress factor, the recruiting, everything is magnified by 1,000. And I didn’t know what to expect, but I didn’t expect it to be as tough as it was… When you’re in that space it’s fight or flight. You have to find a way to manage it all.”
Gasso said it took her three or four years to fully find her footing helming a Division I team, and that she quickly realized that recruiting is at the heart of building a successful program. But coming over 1,300 miles from Long Beach to Norman, Gasso had nothing to build on in terms of recruiting, so she went back to her roots to recruit.
“Ultimately, what I learned is that recruiting is what it’s all about to get where you want and to maintain it — you have to be a tireless recruiter,” Gasso said. “I was really starting from nothing. I had no recruits to work from, so what I did was go back to where my roots were and go to the junior colleges in California and pull out a bunch of those kids to get this program back on track … I didn’t know if that was the right thing to do back then, but now I know it was.”
But through those early years, those alongside her in the dugout didn’t see Gasso’s struggles.
“I remember those years were new for all of us, but if you're telling me coach felt a little overwhelmed, I would have never known it,” Lombardi said. “She takes everything in stride.”
Lombardi and her former teammates had every reason to not realize Gasso’s internal struggles, as Oklahoma was successful immediately in her tenure. The Sooners reached the NCAA Regionals in Gasso’s first five seasons, and won a Big 12 title in her second.
But Oklahoma softball started to become what it is today when Gasso and Lombardi led the team to its first national championship in 2000.
It turned an up-and-coming program that had never made an NCAA Super Regional into a legitimate national powerhouse that could compete for recruits with the sport’s bluebloods.
“I can remember calling recruits before that and telling them of our interest and then asking them what they knew about us and at that time, recruits didn't always know a whole lot about our program because we were up and coming,” Lombardi said. “But after we won the championship and when we looked at our top recruits, they were waiting to talk to us and were very familiar with our program.”
'Sustainability is the toughest thing'
Head coach Patty Gasso claps during the game against Wichita State on Mar. 4.
Trey Young/The Daily
The Sooners went on to reach the Women’s College World Series four consecutive years after winning in 2000, which continued to heighten the team’s brand. But even after the success,things weren’t all easy.
The Sooners were now among the best teams in the country, and with that came the challenge of trying to beat the best teams on the field and on the recruiting trail year in and year out.
“I think sustainability is the toughest thing to do in all sports. To be able to sustain and to be at the top year in and year out is just a testament to Coach Gasso, and the type of recruiting that she's done year after year,” Lombardi said. “Getting her athletes to believe in the program and to believe in her vision and to content for a national championship. You think sometimes you win one and things get easier.
“To me actually, it's the opposite. It continues to get tougher and tougher.”
Gasso learned in her early years that the rigor of being a Division I coach could not be taken on by one person alone — it required an elite staff working together.
The ability to craft a staff that’s able to execute her vision has been crucial in maintaining success.
“It’s about trusting your assistant, trusting your staff, appreciating your staff so that they'll work for you,” Gasso said. “And when I first was here, I was trying to do everything myself, and that's part of why I was so underwater. When I started to bring in coaches and give them bigger responsibilities that allowed me to oversee things versus trying to control everything, which was not working well for me.”
Gasso cultivates that trust in her staff by keeping those duties in the family of OU softball, and sometimes even within the Gasso family.
All of Gasso’s assistants in 2019 had some connection to the program before being hired as coaches. Her oldest son JT is an assistant, and her youngest son DJ is a graduate assistant, associate head coach Jennifer Rocha played at Oklahoma from 1996 to 1998 and was a graduate assistant from 1999 to 2001 and Gasso hired five recent former players — Sydney Romero, Shay Knighten, Falepolima Aviu, Kelsey Arnold and Paige Parker — as assistants this season.
That’s no accident. Gasso intentionally and proactively hires people who have seen her coaching style — a unique combination of tough love, compassion and life lessons — up close and personal.
“I don’t know that I could coach with just any coach and I don’t know that just any coach could coach with me,” Gasso said. “When you have former players on your staff, they know what to expect. They’ve been here and they know what it’s like. They understand how I like things and how I work, and it’s always been really successful.”
But whether it was before or after all the national championships, or her coaching staff was filled out by former All-Americans, Gasso herself has remained the same. JT said the first two words that come to mind regarding his mom’s coaching style are “consistent” and “loving,” two traits that have been with her the whole time.
“She’s always been a teacher at heart in the sense of trying to reach people that way,” JT said. “I don’t know what it was like for the first couple years for those players, but what’s been so cool is to see generations of OU softball players have the same experience and the very same Coach Gasso they can call on.”
'The life lessons she taught us'
Head coach Patty Gasso talks with junior catcher Lynnsie Elam during the game against Wichita State on Mar. 4.
Trey Young/The Daily
For those who have played for, coached with and been raised by Gasso, the part of her style that stands out most has nothing to do with batting stances, throwing motions or base running techniques — it’s her emphasis on preparing players for life beyond softball.
The crux of Gasso’s coaching isn’t separating teaching the minutia of softball and teaching broader concepts about life, she combines the two and uses athletic lessons to inform life lessons.
“It’s cool to be able to see how things correlate on and off the field — she teaches us to be tough on the field and to stand our ground,” said Keilani Ricketts, who played for Gasso from 2010 to 2013. “And she teaches us off the field to have a voice and stand up for ourselves whenever we’re dealing with conflict… It inspires us to advocate for ourselves.”
Inspiring her players to advocate for themselves is exactly what Gasso aims to do. A coach directs, instructs and trains her players to succeed on the field. But as an advocate, Gasso tries to transform her players from teenage girls to young women ready for professional softball, coaching, the workforce or whatever else may await.
“I don't want them to think of me as just a coach. I want them to think of me as their advocate,” Gasso said. “I want them to know that when they are done here, that they are standing on their own feet, and they're standing tall and they're confident and they can look people in the eye and they can give a good strong handshake and they can stand for what they believe in and they can fight for the job that they want.”
Lombardi remembers that being a Gasso hallmark since arriving in Norman, and it’s still true two decades later.
“That’s something that was instilled in us from day one, understanding that we’re young girls coming in this program and that for her it was to help transfer us into young women ready to take on the next chapter in our lives,” Lombardi said. “Softball and all the life lessons she taught us would prepare us for when the lights would go out and and it was time for us to go into the real world.”
Her ability to tie together life and softball is what separates her from her peers among college softball’s elite, those who know her well say. Plenty of programs win softball games year in and year out, but Gasso has cultivated a brand around Oklahoma softball: family,
“When I came on as a (graduate assistant) in 2012, I really saw it and realized it was way more than sports,” JT said. “I didn’t really know how big her impact really was because I only saw it in my own world as a kid. But it’s throughout the whole country and throughout the whole world. There are people in Australia, people in Europe, people all over the place who are just drawn to this program and are drawn to her as a coach.”
When Gasso started at Oklahoma, softball wasn’t among the athletic department’s highest priorities. Football, then as is now, was the university’s calling card, the baseball team won a national title a year before her arrival and the men’s basketball team was regularly reaching the NCAA Tournament.
But, like always, Gasso used it as an opportunity to advocate for her players, and four national championships later, she still wants her players to feel important at a university with multiple elite athletic programs.
“We’re at a university that puts a lot of emphasis on football, and rightfully so, but I want them to know they’re as important as any athlete on this campus and they work as hard as any athlete on this campus,” Gasso said. “I talk to them about equality in the workforce and making sure they are treated properly and paid properly. I know they are going to be put in these kinds of situations and I don’t want them to be afraid or to back down.”
'The expectation is always the same'
Head coach Patty Gasso during the game against Wichita State on Mar. 4.
Trey Young/The Daily
Gasso’s challenge in 2020 isn’t entirely new. In the last decade, she has changed the guard from Ricketts to Lauren Chamberlain, from Chamberlain to Romero and Knighten, and now from Romero and Kinghten to the next generation.
And not all transitions are smooth, but Gasso has fought through the same struggles she’s going through now to reach the peak of the sport — as JT pointed out, the Sooners lost four games early in Romero and Knighten’s freshman and sophomore years, both of which ended with national championships.
In the past when the results weren’t the same, Gasso has been deliberate in connecting with her players and being transparent with the team’s issues.
“One thing that was very important to her were the little things, and it was important for us to sit down and have conversations as women versus being nitpicky as girls when something wasn’t right with our team,” Lombardi said. “And I think she was getting us to understand how you go about situations on the field and off the field, how you deal with conflict — and I don’t know anyone who likes to deal with conflict — but I think she did a great job getting us to understand that and how to read each other.”
This season, Gasso lost four 2019 All-Americans in Romero, Kinghten, Aviu and Caleigh Clifton to graduation, All-Big 12 pitcher Mariah Lopez to transfer and has struggled with injuries to key players such as senior pitcher Giselle Juarez and senior utility Nicole Mendes.
And while Gasso’s coaching style remains consistent, it’s her adaptability in these moments that has helped her maintain Oklahoma’s dominance. As she’s recruited and developed new eras of stars, she understands how to be the best coach she can be for each particular generation.
“It’s funny comparing stories to my sister or the girls now because we’ll say she was way harder on my sister’s classes or we’ll say she’s not as hard on the girls now,” said Ricketts, who was USA Softball’s Collegiate Player of the Year in 2012 and 2013. “But I think it’s just that she’s adapted so well to each generation and understood what they needed from her.”
The balance in staying true to herself as a coach and knowing when to adapt is rare, and the people who have seen it up close say it’s instrumental to her success. However Gasso adapts to her next generation and challenges, one thing is certain: She will hold them to the same standard she’s held players to since she was new, overwhelmed coach in 1995.
It’s what has helped her build and sustain Oklahoma softball.
“The expectation is always the same — we expect people to be their best and want people to be the best that they can be on the field,” JT said. “So when you're talking about in moments like these, the main message we have is pursuing excellence. Everyone is learning what that means. When I think of times like these, I just think of people that are learning and people that are growing and that we've seen that throughout every team we've had.”
- Vic Reynolds, sports editor
- Mar 8, 2020 Updated 18 hrs ago
- 0
- 11 min to read
OU softball head coach Patty Gasso poses for a photo at Marita Hynes Field on Feb. 19.
Caitlyn Epes/The Daily
Patty Gasso had a comfortable 5-1 lead over Utah in the fourth inning last Friday, but she was taking no chances.
The Utes had just scored their first run and had two runners on after the Sooners let two routine plays at second base fall through. The Oklahoma softball coach went to the circle and gathered her pitcher, catcher and infield.
“There were runners at first and third, so I was telling (shortstop) Grace Lyons to handle the runner on her own,” Gasso said. “But it was really also a message to (pitcher Shannon Saile) that she had success with this part of the lineup, so just go in and attack. It was more about giving her confidence and making sure the defense was in the right position.”
The Sooners picked up two outs on the next two batters, squashing Utah’s potential momentum. Oklahoma then immediately scored five runs in the bottom of the fourth, shut out the Utes in the fifth and proceeded to seal a run-rule victory.
It was a moment that exemplified Gasso’s coaching prowess — from teaching specifics of the game to Lyons, to helping Saile with the more abstract concept of confidence — and a win that kept the Sooners rolling amid Gasso’s newest coaching challenge as she ushers in another new era of Oklahoma softball.
She proved she was still as good as ever in 2019, her 25th year at Oklahoma, with a season that included a program record 41-game win streak, six All-Americans, an undefeated conference record and a fourth consecutive Women’s College World Series appearance. The only achievement the Sooners fell short of was winning a national championship, as UCLA swept them in the WCWS finals.
But 2020 is a different story. The Sooners lost four of their first 24 games — including to unranked Long Beach State and North Texas, while it took them 60 games to take their fourth loss in 2019. They’re battling injuries, transfers and, maybe most difficult, replacing Oklahoma’s most successful senior class in Gasso’s tenure. But the season’s challenge also presents an opportunity for Gasso to utilize two of her strengths: teaching and adaptation.
“I think that she’d be telling them right now to keep fighting and this is a tough part in the season right now. But we will persevere and we will be better because of it,” said Melyssa Lombardi, who played for Gasso from 1995 to 1996 and was an assistant from 1997 to 2018. “I think on the outside people could go, ‘Oh, goodness, what's going on?’ Me being inside the program, I have no concerns.”
Lombardi’s mindset makes sense when looking at Gasso’s history. She has taken Oklahoma softball from a fledgling team to one of the NCAA’s premiere programs regardless of sport. With over 1,200 wins, four Women’s College World Series championships and 12 Big 12 championships, Gasso’s success informs any lack of concern her former assistant and player has.
But there’s no single secret in her coaching style that manifests her winning pedigree, it’s a combination of maintaining consistency as an elite recruiter and developer of talent, her focus on molding players into young women on and off the field and an ability to adapt year to year to her teams.
“I’m 100 percent the coach and person I am today because of my time with Coach Gasso,” said Lombardi, now Oregon’s head coach. “All the life lessons she’s taught me on and off the field are definitely things I want to take and have taken with me.”
'I was really starting from nothing'
Head coach Patty Gasso talks to sophomore infielder Grace Lyons during the game against Wichita State on Mar. 4.
Trey Young/The Daily
When Gasso first arrived in Norman in 1995, she was overwhelmed.
After five-years at Long Beach City College, Gasso was hired to take over Oklahoma’s softball program. While the work was the same, the grind and heightened workload of being a Division coach left Gasso feeling underwater.
“I thought going from junior college to Division I was kind of the natural step but I found out it is absolutely not a natural step,” Gasso said. “The workload, the stress factor, the recruiting, everything is magnified by 1,000. And I didn’t know what to expect, but I didn’t expect it to be as tough as it was… When you’re in that space it’s fight or flight. You have to find a way to manage it all.”
Gasso said it took her three or four years to fully find her footing helming a Division I team, and that she quickly realized that recruiting is at the heart of building a successful program. But coming over 1,300 miles from Long Beach to Norman, Gasso had nothing to build on in terms of recruiting, so she went back to her roots to recruit.
“Ultimately, what I learned is that recruiting is what it’s all about to get where you want and to maintain it — you have to be a tireless recruiter,” Gasso said. “I was really starting from nothing. I had no recruits to work from, so what I did was go back to where my roots were and go to the junior colleges in California and pull out a bunch of those kids to get this program back on track … I didn’t know if that was the right thing to do back then, but now I know it was.”
But through those early years, those alongside her in the dugout didn’t see Gasso’s struggles.
“I remember those years were new for all of us, but if you're telling me coach felt a little overwhelmed, I would have never known it,” Lombardi said. “She takes everything in stride.”
Lombardi and her former teammates had every reason to not realize Gasso’s internal struggles, as Oklahoma was successful immediately in her tenure. The Sooners reached the NCAA Regionals in Gasso’s first five seasons, and won a Big 12 title in her second.
But Oklahoma softball started to become what it is today when Gasso and Lombardi led the team to its first national championship in 2000.
It turned an up-and-coming program that had never made an NCAA Super Regional into a legitimate national powerhouse that could compete for recruits with the sport’s bluebloods.
“I can remember calling recruits before that and telling them of our interest and then asking them what they knew about us and at that time, recruits didn't always know a whole lot about our program because we were up and coming,” Lombardi said. “But after we won the championship and when we looked at our top recruits, they were waiting to talk to us and were very familiar with our program.”
'Sustainability is the toughest thing'
Head coach Patty Gasso claps during the game against Wichita State on Mar. 4.
Trey Young/The Daily
The Sooners went on to reach the Women’s College World Series four consecutive years after winning in 2000, which continued to heighten the team’s brand. But even after the success,things weren’t all easy.
The Sooners were now among the best teams in the country, and with that came the challenge of trying to beat the best teams on the field and on the recruiting trail year in and year out.
“I think sustainability is the toughest thing to do in all sports. To be able to sustain and to be at the top year in and year out is just a testament to Coach Gasso, and the type of recruiting that she's done year after year,” Lombardi said. “Getting her athletes to believe in the program and to believe in her vision and to content for a national championship. You think sometimes you win one and things get easier.
“To me actually, it's the opposite. It continues to get tougher and tougher.”
Gasso learned in her early years that the rigor of being a Division I coach could not be taken on by one person alone — it required an elite staff working together.
The ability to craft a staff that’s able to execute her vision has been crucial in maintaining success.
“It’s about trusting your assistant, trusting your staff, appreciating your staff so that they'll work for you,” Gasso said. “And when I first was here, I was trying to do everything myself, and that's part of why I was so underwater. When I started to bring in coaches and give them bigger responsibilities that allowed me to oversee things versus trying to control everything, which was not working well for me.”
Gasso cultivates that trust in her staff by keeping those duties in the family of OU softball, and sometimes even within the Gasso family.
All of Gasso’s assistants in 2019 had some connection to the program before being hired as coaches. Her oldest son JT is an assistant, and her youngest son DJ is a graduate assistant, associate head coach Jennifer Rocha played at Oklahoma from 1996 to 1998 and was a graduate assistant from 1999 to 2001 and Gasso hired five recent former players — Sydney Romero, Shay Knighten, Falepolima Aviu, Kelsey Arnold and Paige Parker — as assistants this season.
That’s no accident. Gasso intentionally and proactively hires people who have seen her coaching style — a unique combination of tough love, compassion and life lessons — up close and personal.
“I don’t know that I could coach with just any coach and I don’t know that just any coach could coach with me,” Gasso said. “When you have former players on your staff, they know what to expect. They’ve been here and they know what it’s like. They understand how I like things and how I work, and it’s always been really successful.”
But whether it was before or after all the national championships, or her coaching staff was filled out by former All-Americans, Gasso herself has remained the same. JT said the first two words that come to mind regarding his mom’s coaching style are “consistent” and “loving,” two traits that have been with her the whole time.
“She’s always been a teacher at heart in the sense of trying to reach people that way,” JT said. “I don’t know what it was like for the first couple years for those players, but what’s been so cool is to see generations of OU softball players have the same experience and the very same Coach Gasso they can call on.”
'The life lessons she taught us'
Head coach Patty Gasso talks with junior catcher Lynnsie Elam during the game against Wichita State on Mar. 4.
Trey Young/The Daily
For those who have played for, coached with and been raised by Gasso, the part of her style that stands out most has nothing to do with batting stances, throwing motions or base running techniques — it’s her emphasis on preparing players for life beyond softball.
The crux of Gasso’s coaching isn’t separating teaching the minutia of softball and teaching broader concepts about life, she combines the two and uses athletic lessons to inform life lessons.
“It’s cool to be able to see how things correlate on and off the field — she teaches us to be tough on the field and to stand our ground,” said Keilani Ricketts, who played for Gasso from 2010 to 2013. “And she teaches us off the field to have a voice and stand up for ourselves whenever we’re dealing with conflict… It inspires us to advocate for ourselves.”
Inspiring her players to advocate for themselves is exactly what Gasso aims to do. A coach directs, instructs and trains her players to succeed on the field. But as an advocate, Gasso tries to transform her players from teenage girls to young women ready for professional softball, coaching, the workforce or whatever else may await.
“I don't want them to think of me as just a coach. I want them to think of me as their advocate,” Gasso said. “I want them to know that when they are done here, that they are standing on their own feet, and they're standing tall and they're confident and they can look people in the eye and they can give a good strong handshake and they can stand for what they believe in and they can fight for the job that they want.”
Lombardi remembers that being a Gasso hallmark since arriving in Norman, and it’s still true two decades later.
“That’s something that was instilled in us from day one, understanding that we’re young girls coming in this program and that for her it was to help transfer us into young women ready to take on the next chapter in our lives,” Lombardi said. “Softball and all the life lessons she taught us would prepare us for when the lights would go out and and it was time for us to go into the real world.”
Her ability to tie together life and softball is what separates her from her peers among college softball’s elite, those who know her well say. Plenty of programs win softball games year in and year out, but Gasso has cultivated a brand around Oklahoma softball: family,
“When I came on as a (graduate assistant) in 2012, I really saw it and realized it was way more than sports,” JT said. “I didn’t really know how big her impact really was because I only saw it in my own world as a kid. But it’s throughout the whole country and throughout the whole world. There are people in Australia, people in Europe, people all over the place who are just drawn to this program and are drawn to her as a coach.”
When Gasso started at Oklahoma, softball wasn’t among the athletic department’s highest priorities. Football, then as is now, was the university’s calling card, the baseball team won a national title a year before her arrival and the men’s basketball team was regularly reaching the NCAA Tournament.
But, like always, Gasso used it as an opportunity to advocate for her players, and four national championships later, she still wants her players to feel important at a university with multiple elite athletic programs.
“We’re at a university that puts a lot of emphasis on football, and rightfully so, but I want them to know they’re as important as any athlete on this campus and they work as hard as any athlete on this campus,” Gasso said. “I talk to them about equality in the workforce and making sure they are treated properly and paid properly. I know they are going to be put in these kinds of situations and I don’t want them to be afraid or to back down.”
'The expectation is always the same'
Head coach Patty Gasso during the game against Wichita State on Mar. 4.
Trey Young/The Daily
Gasso’s challenge in 2020 isn’t entirely new. In the last decade, she has changed the guard from Ricketts to Lauren Chamberlain, from Chamberlain to Romero and Knighten, and now from Romero and Kinghten to the next generation.
And not all transitions are smooth, but Gasso has fought through the same struggles she’s going through now to reach the peak of the sport — as JT pointed out, the Sooners lost four games early in Romero and Knighten’s freshman and sophomore years, both of which ended with national championships.
In the past when the results weren’t the same, Gasso has been deliberate in connecting with her players and being transparent with the team’s issues.
“One thing that was very important to her were the little things, and it was important for us to sit down and have conversations as women versus being nitpicky as girls when something wasn’t right with our team,” Lombardi said. “And I think she was getting us to understand how you go about situations on the field and off the field, how you deal with conflict — and I don’t know anyone who likes to deal with conflict — but I think she did a great job getting us to understand that and how to read each other.”
This season, Gasso lost four 2019 All-Americans in Romero, Kinghten, Aviu and Caleigh Clifton to graduation, All-Big 12 pitcher Mariah Lopez to transfer and has struggled with injuries to key players such as senior pitcher Giselle Juarez and senior utility Nicole Mendes.
And while Gasso’s coaching style remains consistent, it’s her adaptability in these moments that has helped her maintain Oklahoma’s dominance. As she’s recruited and developed new eras of stars, she understands how to be the best coach she can be for each particular generation.
“It’s funny comparing stories to my sister or the girls now because we’ll say she was way harder on my sister’s classes or we’ll say she’s not as hard on the girls now,” said Ricketts, who was USA Softball’s Collegiate Player of the Year in 2012 and 2013. “But I think it’s just that she’s adapted so well to each generation and understood what they needed from her.”
The balance in staying true to herself as a coach and knowing when to adapt is rare, and the people who have seen it up close say it’s instrumental to her success. However Gasso adapts to her next generation and challenges, one thing is certain: She will hold them to the same standard she’s held players to since she was new, overwhelmed coach in 1995.
It’s what has helped her build and sustain Oklahoma softball.
“The expectation is always the same — we expect people to be their best and want people to be the best that they can be on the field,” JT said. “So when you're talking about in moments like these, the main message we have is pursuing excellence. Everyone is learning what that means. When I think of times like these, I just think of people that are learning and people that are growing and that we've seen that throughout every team we've had.”
